An Amazing Community

10 Nov An Amazing Community

When I started this blog I didn’t think I would find too much to write about. Now I find myself wondering what not to write about as so many great things have been happening within my gaming hobby time.

I have held up finishing part 2 of Entering the Gates of Antares to tell you about a very touching and heart-warming event that took place this evening. I am a member of Tabletopbattle.com’s patron supporter people……which I have found to be a great source of information and chatting to some wonderful fellow gamers about the hobby, mainly bolt action but they now have many little subgroups for different games. The reason I decided to spend some of my hobby money each month on a group of random, crazy and slightly odd Norwegian guys is because they entertained me, they make good battle reports which I suggest you go and check out. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOFfaGX521aCkyn5wmgQvxQ

Since I have joined however I have been introduced to the patron only section on Facebook, where I have spoken to and even got the chance to meet a few of the great guys who love the hobby like I do.

Recently Damon (one of the founders of TTB) asked if I could/would help out a fellow Patron, Mr Andy B to set up and maintain his website. Which TTB have allowed him to host through their own website http://tabletopbattle.com/small-terrain.html

I was happy to help out, and it turned out Andy was a war veteran, so with even more reason to help I got the shop up and running for him, which he still doesn’t stop thanking me for.

Andy’s shop Small Terrain sells miniature terrain in a variety of scales, however he makes it all by hand. A very time consuming process as all of us gamers know, especially when doing it as a business as you need to get things sent out as quickly as possible.

So having had a few chats with Andy, TTB’s very own Damon and Svein pledged £1000 to help him buy a much needed laser cutter to help with his work. Little known to Andy that they had also set up a secret group in which they kindly asked anyone in the Patron group (except Andy himself of course) if they could help him out by pledging some money?

Between the 40 odd people we managed to scrape together another £1000.

The fantastic news was broken to him tonight over the phone by Damon, needless to say there were some tears. I know Andy has now been facebook calling many of the patrons all over the world to express his thanks and I can fully admit to being a little choked up at his kind words of thanks. This is someone who as of today I have nevermet (hopefully rectifying that soon) but someone I class as a good friend having spent a lot of time chatting about things (mainly over facebook).

So the point of this post was really to say that tonight I was humbled by a community rallying around one of their own and just how good it feels to be involved in something like this.I think Damon put it fantastically in this message which he doesn’t mind me sharing

“I think I have said something before, but I can repeat myself. TTB has turned out to be way more than what we imagined, the videos and FB page are all good and fine, but when we started getting you guys (the patrons) in one group it took a turn for the better and much much more. Coming from a gaming community of younger players and 40k, to a community of Matt Rattenbury 😉 and everyone else (i.e. players my own age) and much more mature was a real change, This thing that we did behind Andy B`s back (you never saw us coming did you) was a thing of beauty and really goes to show what a group of like-minded people can do”

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and I hope you are all part of communities that show this kind of support for people.

Was well worth it 🙂 and tbh if we could have done more we would have, but i think we did good in a short time and it helps a deserving Vet to hopefully get his feet back on solid ground 🙂 Well written Matt 🙂